Section outline

  • Lecture:

    Good Beginnings and Endings:

    the Introduction, Methods, and Discussion of a Manuscript

    Faculty:  Alison Huang, MD, MAS

    Location:       Mission Hall 1400

    This session focuses on writing the introduction, methods, and discussion sections of research manuscripts. We will examine strategies for drafting an introduction that offers a compelling rationale for the research and provides necessary contextual information to frame the research goals, while staying within space limits. We will also discuss how to prepare a methods section that provides all critical information about the design and implementation of a study and anticipates readers' questions about the conduct of the research, but avoids unnecessary detail. Finally, we will examine strategies for drafting a discussion that highlights the most important study findings without restating information from the results, acknowledges the limitations of the research without undermining its strengths, and guides readers in interpreting study findings in the context of previous work.

    • Session Slides:

    • Lecture slides: Good Beginnings and Endings File

    • Session Audio/Video Recording (Access restricted to registered students):

    • Required Reading:

      Browner WS. Publishing and Presenting Clinical Research, 3rd Ed, Chapters 3, 4, and 8

    • Optional Reading:

    • Manuscript Preparation and Publication" by David Holmes, et al. in Careers in Circulation, 2009;120:906-913 File
      Not available unless: Your ID number contains 02

    • Assignment #2: Submit the title and a ~3-paragraph introduction for a manuscript based on a research project that you are conducting or have recently completed - due by 5 pm on May 8.

    • Assignment 2 template File
    • Assignment 2